WE’RE ALREADY up to our ears with lawyers and they just seem to keep on coming. Pretty soon we’ll have lawyers driving taxis for a living. And that notion is not farfetched as I’ve experienced riding a couple of Grab cars in Manila driven by lawyers.
Since the dawn of civilization philosophers have written about which are the most noble professions for man and with a few deviations they have been almost synonymous in saying that the Teacher, Healer and Soldier are the three most noble professions of all.
These three professions were mentioned in no particular order. On a personal note, I say that the Teacher is the most noble of all as without the Teacher we will have no Healer or Soldier.
Of course, if we have the most noble, it would not be complete as to which is the most despicable and the Tax Collector tops the list with the Lawyer somewhere near.
And then there are doctors who become politicians, which is probably worst. Notable is former congresswoman then Health secretary Janette Garin who is a licensed doctor and now again running as representative of the 1st District of Iloilo.
Her only claim to fame as Department of Health secretary is vaccinating 800,000 plus schoolchildren with the experimental vaccine Dengvaxia.
The current population of the Philippines is 107,154,603 as of Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018, based on the latest United Nations estimates. And according to the Integrated Bar of the Philippines it has 40,000 registered members. The IBP is an organization wherein all lawyers are required to register.
Added to this current membership of 40,000 lawyers will be 3,747 new lawyers who passed the 2016 Bar examinations conducted by the Supreme Court and took their oath. This makes the total number of lawyers in the Philippines at 43,747. Include the 1,724 who passed the 2017 Bar and you have a grand total of 45,471 lawyers in these islands.
The Philippines has a population of 107 million plus natives and a 45-thousand plus population of lawyers which roughly estimates to about one lawyer per 2,000 plus Filipinos.
If all 2,000 plus Filipinos would suddenly have the need to have something notarized then a long queue to this single lawyer’s office is certainly expected. But that’s not the case (pun intended) as in all probability out of this 2,000 plus natives only less than one percent would ever need a lawyer in their entire lifetime.
In fact a huge majority of these 2,000 plus Filipinos would finish their existence without ever needing the services of a lawyer.
Which brings us to this question: Are lawyers a necessary fact of life?
To a certain extent yes, but that would depend on your way of life or lifestyle. If you are Leila “frailties of a woman” de Lima, the services of a lawyer is not only de rigueur but certainly a matter of life or death.
However, if you are a surfer in Baler or Siargao or a scuba diver in Puerto Galera, a lawyer is the last thing you need.
In the aftermath of super typhoon “Haiyan” or “Yolanda”, the people of Tacloban City certainly did not need a lawyer to survive but to prosecute Mar “Daang Matuwid “Roxas, yes!
In a post-apocalypse scenario a veterinarian is more relevant than a lawyer.
Out of the total of 107,154,603 Filipinos there are – according to the Philippine Medical Association – 130,000 licensed physicians in the country, but only 70,000 are active in the profession.
Take note that these figures on the number of doctors in the Philippines were based on the 2016 data and have not been updated by the Philippine Medical Association as of press time – and this says a lot about the current state of the Philippine Medical Association.
In an interview by CNN during the time of Department of Health secretary Paulyn Rosell-Ubial, this was what she said:
The Philippines is short of 15,000 doctors to be able to adequately meet the health needs of Filipinos each year. We’re producing only 2,600 a year.
Also take note that the current Secretary of Health has no statement on this discrepancy; perhaps he’s busy on the Dengvaxia and missing health centers issue.
Compared to Cuba which has probably the best public health care system (Cuba has a ratio of one doctor for every 1,075 patients) the Philippines fairs poorly, meaning the Philippines has a shortage of doctors.
Indeed, there are far-flung areas in the country where babies are born and people dying without ever seeing a doctor.
You know I have never heard the Secretary of Justice complain that we have a shortage of lawyers; you can certainly hear a lot of people say that we have an overpopulation of lawyers.
I’m not saying that we do away with the legal profession as it is also an important component of a civilized society but certainly not a component that people cannot live without.
Lawyers were born out of people intruding into other people’s space, which created the need of some form of mediation to settle disputes avoiding violence. If people respected each other’s space then the need for someone to act as mediator would not be necessary.
If there’s one place were the need for lawyers is de rigueur it is probably in Congress as the only specific duty of a legislator is to make laws, and if you are not a trained lawyer you end up making a fool of yourself like Magdalo party-list representative Gary Alejano.
Come to think of it, Vice President Leni Robredo is supposed to be a lawyer but her obvious unfamiliarity of the laws of the land makes one wonder how in the world she became a lawyer.
So do we need another lawyer? Nah, probably not as there are far too many of them ending up as “notary public” chasers at the back of city hall or taxi drivers on EDSA. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
